In recent years a phenomenon has been discovered in which certain metal oxide-based materials can have a low resistance state and a high resistance state when a voltage is applied, depending on the resistivity prior to application of the voltage and the magnitude of the applied voltage. Interest has been focused on new memory devices that use this phenomenon. This memory device is referred to as a Resistance Random Access Memory (ReRAM). In this type of memory device, it is necessary to apply a set voltage to a variable resistance film to switch the variable resistance film from the high resistance state to the low resistance state, and apply a reset voltage to switch from the low voltage state to the high voltage state, by applying a voltage between the word line and the bit line. When either the set voltage or reset voltage is applied to the variable resistance film and not less than a specific quantity of current flows, the variable resistance film switches the resistance state.
A 3-dimensional cross-point structure has been proposed for the structure of an actual ReRAM device, in which memory cells are disposed at the intersection points of word lines (WL) and bit lines (BL), from the point of view of large scale integration. However, in the 3-dimensional cross-point structure memory device, when a voltage is applied to write data to a given memory cell, a voltage is also applied in the opposite direction to other memory cells which have not been selected. Consequently, it is necessary to provide each memory cell with a variable resistance film and a current selection element. A pin type silicon diode film in which a p-type silicon layer into which an acceptor is introduced, an i-type silicon layer into which impurities are not introduced, and an n-type silicon layer into which a donor is introduced are stacked, for example, is used as the current selection element.